When undertaking family history research, you never quite know what you might find. If a birth or death took place on the day of the census, then this may be reflected in the enumeration. For example, this unnamed lodger in the 1861 census was given the occupation 'since died', poor fellow.
Presumably he had passed away after the census forms were given to each household, but before they handed them back to the enumerator - whilst the fact that they had recently died had been recorded, their name, age and place of birth had not.
The 1911 census was the first enumeration to ask specific details of how many children, living or deceased, were born to married women. This census therefore sometimes sees the names of deceased children recorded, such as with this Lucas family in the 1911 census:-
Young Ellen Irena Lucas was shown as 'dead', but was listed in order with her other siblings. It was her father who filled in this enumeration form, and it seems that he was a little unsure of her precise name. In fact, her birth was registered as Ellen Helena whilst her death was recorded under the forenames Irene Helen. Ellen Irena in the 1911 was another version.
It's always worth finding a family in as many census returns as possible, to see what tidbits may have been recorded by the census enumerator.
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